HEAD COACH JOHN HARBAUGH
Opening Statement: "It's great to see everybody here. We sure appreciate you being here. [It was] a beautiful day for practice [and] a beautiful day for everything. Just a shoutout to our friend, Rachel Yaffe, as she goes through some health things that she's dealing with, and our prayers are with her, that God would heal her completely. We pray that."
I know all eyes are on this game, but talking a little bit about next week's game in Tampa, do you think about or try to gauge anything about the upcoming game of whether it's going to change? Or have you heard anything about it? (Jamison Hensley) "I haven't heard anything. I'm trying to gauge Alison's [Harbaugh] apartment complex right now because we don't really have word. We know the power is still out; we don't know if they're underwater. She has a car down there, so we're hoping it's not underwater. So, we have two things going on there. We don't know much about either at this point."
You've been really good inside the red zone. Obviously, you have RB Derrick Henry, but is there anything you've addressed schematically to be successful in the red zone? (Todd Karpovich) "Probably all of those things. Being good in the red zone usually does start with running the ball. You have to block people and protect, but it goes next to scheme for sure, because it's kind of a different kind of scheme game, because things happen so much faster. And thirdly, it ends up being about extended plays, which we've been good at as well. So, in all three of those areas, our offense is doing a really nice job. We have to try to keep it going."
Going off of that, yesterday when we asked offensive coordinator Todd Monken about the red zone, he talked about how impactful the discussion was after the London game last year. He said you guys were just trying to win a game with as many field goals as possible. Can you talk a bit about what you remember about that conversation? (Kyle Phoenix) (laughter) "It seems like that was a century ago. I don't remember the conversation that well. We probably had one. We'll kick the field goals if we have to, but we sure want to score the touchdowns. Also, if you remember, coming into that game, we were coming off the Pittsburgh game where we had the disappointing loss to Pittsburgh. We had a team meeting in the chapel there at the resort we were at. It was basically an old monastery, seminary type of thing, and they had a beautiful chapel. We called it the 'Chapel of Truth,' because we had to put some truth out there about how we were playing and what we needed to do to go ahead and get right. I remember that meeting." (laughter) "There are a lot of meetings."
RB Chris Collier is out of elevations, do you anticipate this is RB Rasheen Ali's time? (Jeff Zrebiec) "It's definitely a possibility. He's practiced [in] full, so we'll see where we go with that. We have a plan, and it'll be obviously announced when we get to Saturday with the reporting of the elevations and all of that."
I know that Pittsburgh is probably your main rival, but because Washington is better now than they've been in the past, because of the proximity, is this game sort of a budding rivalry more so between the fans rather than the teams because you guys don't play each other that much? (Jerry Coleman) "I don't know, it's really fun. I'm sure everybody is excited in the region, in the DMV. It's cool; it's fun. That's what it's about. Sports is to have fun for the fans. We take it as life and death, and to us on a given day, it kind of feels like it is. But, in the end, it's a great distraction; it's a great thing to have fun with. I hope people have a great time around the Ravens and the Commanders and everybody else in the league. I hope they enjoy it. I hope it's something that gets their minds in a different place sometimes, and they can enjoy it. To whatever extent that is, that's great. For us, it's a rivalry, because it's our next game. We do respect this team. They're very good, they're playing at a high level, and they're [a] tough, physical outfit. We're looking forward to the challenge of that, and we'll be ready for it."
